Michelle Obama's plane in close call

An official plane carrying US First Lady Michelle Obama had to abort a landing at an air base near Washington on Monday due to an air traffic controller's error, the Washington Post reported.

The aircraft carrying the first lady was too close to a military cargo jet and had to scrap its final approach to Andrews Air Force Base, a key hub for top US government officials including President Barack Obama, the Post said Tuesday.

The daily cited anonymous federal officials familiar with the incident.

Controllers at Andrews worried that, as a result of other air traffic officials' mistake, the massive C-17 would not clear the runway at the facility swiftly enough for the first lady's Boeing 737 to land safely.

The Andrews controllers ordered Michelle Obama's flight -- bearing the EXEC1F designation as an aircraft carrying members of the president's family -- to execute a series of turns to put more distance between it and the cargo.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has strict standards on how much distance controllers must maintain between planes, because an aircraft's wake causes severe turbulence.

The FAA requires eight kilometres between a C-17 and the next plane, but the first lady's jet was just 4.8km away, the Post said.

US air traffic controllers have faced heavy scrutiny recently after a series of incidents in which some fell asleep while on duty, leading officials to announce a new "zero tolerance" approach for such activities.